i did a number of commentaries for cbs and then npr. it had to be punchy. my written style is a combination of lawyers analytical writing, a lot of writing that is not legal, and then writing a lot of stuff that had to be punchy. so that is stirred into the pot in various forms. >> you are writing about 1775, you say there were 2.1 million colonists in those days in this country? >> there would've been about 2.1 million whites, 2.6 million all total. it is not precise. they had official censuses in a few colonies. >> where were the population centers among the 13 colonies? >> the polish and centers were the biggest populations were pennsylvania, virginia, massachusetts had quite a good sized population, north carolina was growing by leaps and bounds. people went south through pennsylvania and virginia into the western part of north carolina. -- the population centers were the biggest in pennsylvania, virginia, massachusetts, north carolina. what i call the vanguard colonies or massachusetts, connecticut, virginia, and south carolina. not new york and pennsy